


In my hands, I hold the ashes

by helwolves



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Season 1, Smoking, moderate angst, theoretically canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 08:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8279248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helwolves/pseuds/helwolves
Summary: He hasn’t had to deal with this kind of commotion at his place in — ever, really. And outside, on the tiny porch with its rocking chair he’s never bothered sitting in, surrounded by shifting shadows from the just-risen sun and distant pillars of rock, Keith’s barely choking back the urge to hop on his speeder and go out ahead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> ` “By now we were sure that everything that could possibly happen had happened ... Instead, the Earth had merely made one of its turns. It was night. Everything was just beginning.” _—Italo Calvino, “At Daybreak”_`

It turns out there’s a lot of damn noise involved in rigging up a device that should be able to zero in on the thing that’s been haunting Keith’s dreams for months. Thing. Energy. Whatever.

He hasn’t had to deal with this kind of commotion at his place in — ever, really. And outside, on the tiny porch with its rocking chair he’s never bothered sitting in, surrounded by shifting shadows from the just-risen sun and distant pillars of rock, Keith’s barely choking back the urge to hop on his speeder and go out ahead.

But Shiro’s in there. _Shiro_. What the _fuck_.

He can’t take off and he can’t do what he honestly most wants to do either, which involves... for starters, Shiro and maybe a lot less clothes and definitely a lot less random Garrison cadets bickering and digging through his stash of spare parts and boxes of computer junk the cabin’s previous occupant had left behind.

He doesn’t really understand it all yet — too much has happened, too fast — but he knows it’s _important_ , somehow. He can feel it, in the buzzing just underneath his skin, in the way his vision halos when he stares out to the desert’s distant edge, where it’s still quiet and cool but there’s that feeling, how you know everything’s about to be burned away by the sun’s full heat.

Or maybe that’s just the fact that Keith hasn’t slept in two days, and the dully glowing cigarette in his hand is not his first of the morning.

But fuck that. It’s all the _talking_ that’s got him on edge. Really. He wishes he could be somewhere else for a while, a little while, just until the waiting is over. Somewhere Shiro could have some quiet, too. And that’s — _Shiro_ needs to sleep, but Keith knows he won’t. Not while all of this is happening, while they’re running ahead of some clock that’s ticking down in the barely veiled panic behind Shiro’s dark eyes.

“You should get some rest,” says Shiro, suddenly behind him, as if summoned.

Keith kind of wants to laugh.

“How was your shower?” he asks instead, with a quick look that catches Shiro scrubbing at his strange — and damp — new hair with one of Keith’s mismatched towels.

“ _Amazing_.” Shiro’s voice is low and rough, like the quiet laugh that follows. “I used your toothbrush.”

Keith huffs. “Guess I should’ve grabbed yours with your clothes before I left.” He takes another drag off his cigarette, twisting it between his fingers before he lets his hand drop again.

“Still doing that, huh?” 

Sometimes Keith wishes he was better at picking up the hidden meanings when someone’s voice goes that neutral. It usually doesn’t faze him much, though. This time it sends a cold spike through his gut. He used to be able to read Shiro, at least.

“Still. Again. Stayed quit for a while, but —” He gestures wide around himself, to the weather-beaten little house, to the swath of seemingly endless desert stretching ahead of them, lit pale and empty like a moonscape in the early morning hour. Smoke trails after the motion of his hand. “Didn’t see the point.”

Shiro can be unnervingly quiet for such a big guy, but a moment later Keith can sense him standing closer. Fingers brush his as Shiro plucks the cigarette stub away, and Keith glances sideways just enough to watch Shiro stare down at it with consideration, then raise it to his own lips. He takes a drag and holds it. Smoke clouds the air between them when he releases it with a faint cough.

Keith smirks, eyes back towards the horizon.

“Still gross,” says Shiro, grinding the last of the red glow into the faded wood of the porch with his boot heel.

 _You always thought it was hot when I did it, though_ , Keith thinks.

An emptiness hovers in his chest — a year ago, he would have just _said_ that. Shiro would have laughed, would maybe have thrown him into a headlock and made a catastrophe of his hair. Or maybe he would have just grabbed him and kissed him, hard, admitting to nothing and everything at once.

He would have said it then, but now...

Has it been too long? Is everything —

“Always tasted better on you.”

Shiro’s voice is quiet and he’s shifted even closer, the solid warmth of his chest just brushing against Keith’s shoulder blades, one hand sliding over Keith’s hip. Slow, like he’s trying not to spook him. But firm, because he knows that’s necessary, too. The fingertips of Shiro’s right hand feel strange against Keith’s skin when Shiro tucks a bit of hair behind his ear, but Keith leans back with a sigh — and then Shiro’s got both arms around his waist, pulling him in tight, and nothing feels strange about that at all.

Maybe not too long, then.

He lets his head fall back onto Shiro’s shoulder. Lips brush his temple, so hesitant it almost tickles, and Keith’s still smiling like an idiot when they both twist at once to meet in a kiss. It tastes of ashes, but there’s warmth there, kindling, a flicker of heat when Shiro licks at his tongue. Keith reaches up and back to grab Shiro’s head, to angle him closer, stroking his thumb over the soft, shorn hair at Shiro’s nape. His heart pounds out of rhythm and he’s _not_ shaking, he’s not — 

Keith drags his teeth along Shiro’s bottom lip as he finally pulls back, remembering how it’d make Shiro’s cheekbones glow a pretty pink, even if he can’t quite see it at this angle. Having Shiro wrapped around him feels too good to move just yet, and Shiro seems to agree, squeezing his arms around Keith’s waist but not making any indication of letting go anytime soon.

Some color has started filtering into the distance as the sun finally makes it out from behind the canyons. Keith lets his hair fall back into his eyes and a nearly silent laugh rumbles through Shiro’s chest, right through into Keith’s. He wants to capture it there, between his ribs, around his own heart where everything’s been empty.

“Your hair got so damn long,” Shiro murmurs, just behind Keith’s ear.

 _You like it, though_ , he doesn’t say. “I knew something wasn’t right,” is what he does.

Shiro takes a deep breath, in, and out, ruffling Keith’s hair with the damp heat of it.

“I knew I wasn’t crazy,” Keith says, quiet and certain.

“Well,” says Shiro after a few long seconds, with an odd lilt. And then he’s laughing again. Softly at first until —

“Hey! Fuck you.”

— Shiro’s holding a struggling Keith against himself, outright ignoring Keith’s half-hearted attempt to stomp on his foot and twist free of his arms. Never an easy feat before, but now...

“Stupid robot arm,” Keith says, sounding petulant and not even trying to bite it back. He’d mostly managed to get Shiro to stop calling him _cute_ a year ago, but only mostly, and he waits for it now with a preemptive cringe.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro says instead.

The corner of Keith’s jaw twinges as a familiar ache sets in and he forces it down.

“Don’t. Wasn’t your fault. I knew it _couldn’t_ have — I mean, they said — but I —”

“Hey. _Hey_.”

Keith does turn then, Shiro’s grip loosening just enough to let him twist and wrap himself around Shiro instead. 

He won’t fucking cry, not now, not when Shiro’s _home_... Being able to tuck his face in against Shiro’s neck, like he thought he’d never be able to do again — that helps. Shiro holds him until his breathing returns to less of a panicked gasping, both hands tracing warm circles into Keith’s skin through his t-shirt. You’d think an alien robot arm would be cold. He should have expected this, though. No part of Shiro has ever been cold. Not to anyone, and especially not to Keith.

“I make mistakes sometimes, too, you know,” Shiro says, finally, so quietly, his lips catching in Keith’s hair. “What I said before I left —”

“ _Don’t_.”

“I —”

“I don’t care, I really fucking don’t. Didn’t believe you anyway. Did you really think I wouldn’t want to wait for you?”

“Keith...”

“Takashi.”

He only meant to sass him, to derail his thoughts from that track that wasn’t going anywhere they needed to go right now. But Shiro’s face softens, so suddenly and so completely, like in a moment the past twelve months of god fucking knows what had just washed away like a wave when the tide’s rolling out. He pulls Keith against his chest and leans in low, pressing his face against Keith’s shoulder.

“Say that again.”

Keith kinda hates calling people directly by name, any of their names, unless he has to, but he knows Shiro — knows what makes him smile, even if it’s been a while since he had the chance. And he’s got a lot of missed chances to make up for.

“ _Takashi_ ,” Keith whispers against Shiro’s jaw, then nips at the stubbled, clean-smelling skin there. 

“ _Shiro_?” Lance’s voice cuts in, loud even from the other side of the cabin’s thick wooden wall.

Keith sighs in a way that comes out very much like a growl. “Sounds like you’re wanted.”

“You, too. Let’s go find what you’ve been searching for, yeah?” Shiro says, tensing his arms around Keith, crushing him like he’s saving up the contact before he has to pull away completely.

“Already did,” Keith mumbles against Shiro’s neck, not letting him yet.

Shiro’s inflected hum in response is too quick and too loud not to sound like trouble. Keith can honestly _hear_ the grin in his voice, as much as he can feel his own face going red.

“ _Nothing_ ,” he says, shoving Shiro away and towards the door.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Me _neither_.”

Shiro snort-laughs under his breath and it’s terrible and Keith thinks it might be the best sound he’s heard in a year.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a very, very long time since I finished and posted any fic, so I'm a little nervous. Kudos/recs/comments (here or in private) much appreciated. Hit me up on Tumblr ([main mess](https://helwolves.tumblr.com/), [Voltron only](http://constellatecats.tumblr.com/)) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/helwolves), especially if you're a fellow fandom old. Title swiped [from a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuJzivuF1o) as per usual.
> 
> Aside: I'm well aware that smoking IRL is bad, but it's still pretty sexy. I don't make the rules.


End file.
